Saturday, 21 July 2018

Everything
in this ridiculous ‘fur coat and no knickers’ shop seems designed to knock me out, trip me
up, drench me with water, electrocute me, drench me with water and then
electrocute me, whack me hard on the head or punch me in the face.

First of
all there’s the ornate - heavy - Victorian display shelves. These hang just
above and behind me on the wall as I stand at the serving counter. They are
practical, beautiful, and balanced entirely on two small nails hammered half
arsedly into the wall by guess who?

Greek Tragedy Deathtrap. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

I’d like to
say in view of their obvious precariousness (obvious to me; no other bugger
even thinks about it), TBE ensures that nothing hard, breakable and liable to
do harm is displayed on the shelves. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. It’s
like the excitable part of a Greek wedding just waiting to happen. All day
every day. Right above my head.

Then there’s
the large fancy oval mirrors. TBE likes these. She thinks they make money for
her. They possibly would if they were around long enough to sell. But they’re
not. Why? Well, let me ask you this:

What’s the
safest way to display an oval mirror? On the wall? - Well, yes.

How about wedged
securely on the floor between two immovable objects? - OK, I suppose.

Laid flat?
- A bit rubbish but definitely safe.

So what’s
TBE’s genius way to display an oval mirror?.......

Vaguely propped
upright, rolling unsecured around all over the place like a top heavy Weeble.
Except not like a Weeble, because the point of Weebles is they don’t fall down.

We’ve gone
through so many of these sodding mirrors, but she still won’t learn.

Then
there’s the stupidly long clothes rail, attached to the wall at each end by a
single screw and nowhere else, and weighed down with far too many clothes. What
could possibly go wrong?

Of course
it came off the sodding wall one day. Of course it dumped clothes all over the
other displays and all over the floor. And of course some sad sack of a sales
assistant was underneath the rail when it went.

Me. Of
course.

I was left
flailing around under the rail – with most of the clothes still heavily
attached and attacking me - trying to keep it from crashing to the floor with
one arm (it was really bloody heavy!), whilst desperately stretching out with
the other arm to reach a free standing set of rails nearby, drag them over and
stuff them under the wall rail to temporarily prop it up.

I did it.
Eventually. But it was not a good hair day.

Photo: Google licence free: Flikr bixentro

After surveying
the damage and cursing TBE (obviously), I managed to come up with a more
permanent solution; a broomstick pole holding up the middle of the rail, lashed
in place using half a mile of brown packing string. Sorted.

Knowing TBE
as distastefully and intimately as I do, I reasoned it would probably stay like
that for about a year, but to give TBE her due, it only stayed like that for
about a month and a half.

Saturday, 9 June 2018

We never have staff meetings. We
had one once – at my insistence. It was a terrible idea, I don’t know why I
suggested it. I never will again. This is what happened:

Back in the olden days when the
staff trio consisted of the ever-so-slightly volatile Colleague McDrama; the
ever-so-slightly capricious TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) and lil’ old me, we
developed something of a communication problem (I say ‘we’; it wasn’t me – don’t be thinking it was me. There’s no ‘me’
in ‘we’; I was still naively enthusiastic back then).

I love my job! I love my job! Picture, Maikausminga, Pixabay

Colleague McDrama would frequently
complain to me about TBE. She’d complain that she felt isolated and forgotten
by TBE. That she never saw TBE. That communication was only through the message
book, which was rubbish because it meant TBE either brushed aside any issues McDrama
raised, or completely ignored them. (Sound familiar? It’s like I was staring right at my future and I didn’t
even see it).

The more McDrama pushed (via the message book), the more nasty and
defensive TBE became (via the message book). Colleague McDrama was very unhappy
(and a wee bit, ‘back away slowly,’ ‘hide all the knives,’ teeth spittingly angry).
I urged Colleague McDrama to talk to TBE: to request a formal, face to face
meeting with TBE and deal directly with the issues once and for all.

At the same time, TBE would frequently complain to me about Colleague
McDrama. TBE would complain that Colleague McDrama was always moaning: moaning about
feeling isolated and forgotten; moaning about never seeing TBE; moaning about
only communicating through the message book. The more TBE ignored her (in the message book), the more insistent and angry
McDrama became (in the message book).

TBE was very unhappy with
Colleague McDrama, so I urged TBE to talk to her: to set up a formal, face to
face meeting with McDrama and sort this stuff out directly, and once and for
all.

Friday, 27 April 2018

Consider the MAMAAs; my Middle Aged Men Always
Around: those friendly but ever-so-slightly creepy men who, despite my best,
‘sod the fuck off,’ body language, persist in hanging out at the Out Of Favour
(OOF) shop for much longer than is really unweird to do so (given it’s
basically a women’s clothes shop).

Picture: Pixabay

I use the term, ‘middle-aged’ loosely, because
in reality they range in immature years from a thirty something Ukrainian
ex-prisoner with intensity issues and small-man syndrome (he’s a hoot), to an
eighty-something wannabe-Jack-the-lad who cruises around in his 1950s classic
car to, “impress the ladies.”

Saturday, 24 February 2018

I like a challenge, I do. But a challenge has
got to be within reason, right? Otherwise it’s just like trying to cross the
Sahara on chocolate skis – or trying to stop TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) being a
shit manager: it’s pointless, exhausting and doomed to failure.

Photo: Lenny Flank, Flikr

Sometimes it’s just too hard. Sometimes the
challenge is too great. Sometimes that customer who’s just walked in (oh lucky
me), is just too much of a mountain to climb. This is a (mostly) word for word conversation I had with one
such creature the other day:

Saturday, 10 February 2018

There
are three people who work in this company: TBE (aka The Boss
Erratic), Colleague Crafty and me. That’s not even enough to fill
a taxi.

The
Out Of Favour (OOF) shop (where I work) is about twenty seconds away
from the New Favourite (NF) shop (where I don’t work), which is
just around the corner.

Until
the day both shops become self-service operations (oh, wouldn’t
TBE love that: no staff [i.e. me] to whine on about employment
rights), there
is one
of us working
in each shop. That’s two thirds of the workforce hanging out
within twenty seconds touching distance of each other at any one
time.

Given
this
arrangement,
there is a high probability that
when I am working in the OOF shop, TBE is very often just around the
corner in the NF shop; twenty seconds away.

Saturday, 3 February 2018

Consider the fashionistas. Those effortlessly sartorially gifted people
who waft about in unique, glamorously styled outfits, leaving a trail of awe,
wonder and dropped jaws in their wake.

Well, here at the Out Of Favour (OOF) shop we are lucky to have two such
marvellous creatures in our midst.

Separately, they are a truly eye-watering sight to behold; together,
they are practically traffic-stopping. Literally. I have literally seen traffic
screech to a halt to let these two sashay across the road (truth be told it was
either that or run them over: fashion diva school clearly doesn’t cover the
Green Cross Code).

Theirs is a sea of colour; a truly eye-catching conglomeration of fabric
styles, patterns, textures and layers.

Such is their impact upon our little market town, they rarely venture
out unaccompanied by their ‘minder’.

Friday, 12 January 2018

The
January blues. Everybody gets them. Why wouldn’t you?: It’s grey
and dull and cold and depressing outside, everybody is skint and
inexplicably still post-Christmas knackered, and everyone is
contemplating a Brave
New World
of chocolate free, joy free meals consisting entirely of lettuce
spaghetti and tomato fillets
(or maybe that’s just me).

So
I do understand it’s a tough time of year, I really do. I
sympathise with anyone feeling down, but, well...how can I say this
whilst sounding as warm-hearted and generous as I can… For Christ’s
sake keep it out of the shop, it’s boring listening to you droning
on, and, quite frankly, it’s bringing me down.

Saturday, 6 January 2018

Do you want to see a magic trick? I’ll show you
a magic trick. I’ll show you how to offend every single customer in the course
of a day without even trying.

It’s not my fault. Well, it might be my fault,
but I didn’t mean it to be my fault.

I was trying to be subtle.

It’s like this: TBE (aka The
Boss Erratic) is still successfully doing a swerve on obtaining a public Performing Rights Society (PRS) licence to play music in the shop (of course
she is), so I can still only play royalty free music. Royalty free music is the
audio equivalent of tearing off a massively sticky plaster from a hairy limb
really really slowly whilst simultaneously stubbing your toe on a hot poker
(i.e. It’s eye-wateringly, brain-shockingly, painfully, dreadful).

Original photo: congerdesign, Pixabay

This has been going on for about
ten months now, and this week, I thought:

No more! I rebel! I WILL play a normal CD and
the consequences be damned!

Friday, 22 December 2017

Oh I can’t be doing with all this Christmas
giddiness. Get a grip everyone.

Firstly, all the kids are going nuts over the annual bowl of free Christmas
chocolates in the Out Of Favour (OOF) shop. Calm down kids, they’re the same
chocolates from last year. Literally the same chocolates (probably). They’re
cheap, nasty and taste like shite. I know this because I’ve eaten most of them
out of sheer boredom. Now I feel sick.

Take note kids, too much chocolate turns you into an evil psychopath. Photo: Mojpe, Pixabay

Friday, 15 December 2017

So this week it’s all about pot plants. And glass vases. And TBE (aka
The Boss Erratic). Of course.

Ah, the pot plants…..

Only TBE could make pot plants controversial (plants in pots, not the
other type. Christ, if she had any of that she’d be hands-down The Most
Annoying Stoner Ever. I’ve already seen her drunk, and it is not a pretty
sight).

Friday, 24 November 2017

Everything is broken in the Out Of Favour
(OOF) shop. Everything. This is a typical day. I’m not even joking:

The front door

The door is not my friend: the lock jams and the door itself
sticks. Consequently, I have to play, ‘push-me-pull-you,’ with increasing vigour
- and temper - whilst hunched over the doorway like the world’s crappiest
lock-picker for a five full minutes every morning. That’s every morning; for
months. This does not make me happy.

The coffee machine

I turn the coffee machine on and it begins to leak. I put a
dinner plate underneath to catch the drips. The machine has been leaking for,
perhaps, three months now. Apparently getting an engineer to fix the thing is a
ridiculously unthinkable idea (see also: Servicing/ behaving like a mature, responsible
shop owner), so it just gets worse, day by day. The plate is full after twenty
minutes. It is extremely important I remember to empty the plate in a timely
manner, otherwise the overflow will rain down onto the OOF Shop
Plug-Extension-Lead Modern Art Installation, which TBE (aka The Boss Erratic)
has positioned, rather astoundingly, underneath the coffee machine.

This morning, the coffee machine springs two leaks instead of
the usual one. Water pools all over the counter. I manage to shove a second plate
underneath the newcomer leak, and then pointlessly write yet another doomed message to TBE in the message book. Then I take the liberty of swearing
liberally to myself.

Friday, 17 November 2017

She seems to
have lost her mind over a pint of milk. Well, an ex-pint of milk. Actually, a
pint of milk that never was. Well it was, it just wasn’t when I found it.

Picture: creades, Pixabay

OK, let me
explain properly: I threw away a pint of milk because it was off, despite it
only having been bought the day before by Colleague Craft(y) for the Out Of
Favour (OOF) shop cafe. Then I bought another pint to replace it.

That’s it.

I left the
receipt and a little note to explain why a second pint of milk had been bought
in as many days, and thought no more about it*.

*If you’re new to this blog you might reasonably assume
that the purchase of two pints of milk in two days is extremely conservative
for a café. Unnaturally so. And you’re right, it is. But then, you’re probably
under the misapprehension that the OOF shop café is normal. It is not. Apart
from anything else, it doesn’t have a working coffee machine.....

Friday, 29 September 2017

Right, so you all know by now that your average high frequency MAMAA (Middle Aged Man Always Around) is under the tragic misapprehension that I delight in their glittering company and, during their regretful absences, yearn for their swift return in order to hear more of their enthralling stories and wondrous escapades, right?Given this sad state of affairs it logically follows that a long-term absentee MAMAA, returning after many months, is almost bleedin’ unbearable.MAMAA Yorkshire Casanova, turned up yesterday (calm down, he’s really not worth your hopeful imagination).

Friday, 22 September 2017

Call me old fashioned, but I am of the mind
that a conversation should really make sense to both parties taking part. Isn’t
it just plain rudeness for one party to carry on regardless of the obvious slack-jawed
confusion playing about the face of their fellow conversationalist?

Here’s a tip: if the person standing in front of you looks massively puzzled and clearly has no idea what you're banging on about, stop bloody talking gibberish. Try to actually make sense. I know it takes some effort, but for the love of god, take a good look at yourself and reign it in. Don’t witter lazily away, zig-zagging this way and that like some self-absorbed linguistic equivalent of a downhill skier on a freshly
snowed-on black run. Give us all a break, no one should have to work so hard.

Saturday, 16 September 2017

Why is everything TBE (aka The Boss Erratic)
does the retail equivalent of wearing a fur coat and no knickers? It looks good
on the surface, (if you like that sort of thing), but underneath it’s all total
disorganised carnage.

(OK, probably best to pop a quick note in here:
I have no idea what your nether regions look like, and I’m certainly not saying
that everyone’s knickerless loveliness is disorganised carnage. I mean, it
might be, but that’s your business, not mine. No, this is simply a metaphor for
how generally shit TBE is about the stuff behind the gorgeous image. But you
get that, don’t you?).

Definitely best kept covered........Photo: Shop Girl Tales.

So, the latest idea is two 5ft high, puffball
shaped topiary trees, one either side of the doorway to the Out Of Favour (OOF)
shop.

I can’t deny they look gorgeous. I can’t deny
they make the tatty outside of the shop look attractive. And I can’t deny the
customers really like them.

Tuesday, 22 August 2017

The coffee machine has basically had it. I
think it’s seen what a clusterfuck the Out Of Favour shop has become and has
decided to slowly shut itself down in order to escape.

Picture:kerttu, Pixaby

The latest bit to go on strike is the steam/ milk
frother spout.

For those of you happily uninitiated in the
ways of barista-ism, there are three, ‘stick your cup under,’ parts on even the
most basic commercial coffee machines, (which, of course, is what the Out Of
Favour shop has):

1) The circular bit that grabs onto the big
spoon thingy full of ground coffee, and filters hot water through it; 2) The
hot water spout – like a kettle, only posher; 3) The steam spout – for frothing
milk and generally burning your hands.

The steam spout is pretty much essential. Without
it there is no frothy milk – and no frothy milk means no cappuccinos and
lattes.

Obviously, not having a working frothy spout
thing is a fairly massive problem for a coffee shop, and in any normal shop,
with a normal boss, it would cause panic and an undignified scrabble to get it
fixed as soon as possible.

But I don’t work for a normal boss. I work for
The Boss Erratic (TBE), and clearly she doesn’t see this as the problem I do.

Friday, 11 August 2017

Skills
are great, aren’t they? Who doesn’t love a skill? And who can think badly of a
workplace that develops and nurtures skills?

Working
in the Out Of Favour Shop, for example, has allowed me to develop the, frankly,
amazing skill of successfully holding a lengthy conversation with someone without
having the first clue what we’re talking about.

About the shop

Acerbic? Me? Well, maybe. Let me explain: My boss (aka The Boss Erratic) owns two shops: the Out of Favour Shop and the New Favourite Shop (yes, OK, these are my names for them). Naturally, I work in the Out of Favour shop….
Many of my customers are regulars, and come for a gossip, a moan or free therapy as often as they come to buy.
My job is partly marvellous (low stress, a largely absent boss, friendly shoppers), and partly Twilight Zone (strange customers, inexplicable decision making by The Boss Erratic and just random, nonsensical weirdness). These posts are my musings and observations. Enjoy.
Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and me).